The present invention relates to the use of low-molecular-weight heparins for the prevention and treatment of cerebral edemas.
The invention also relates to the use of low-molecular-weight heparins for the preparation of a medicament for the prevention and treatment of cerebral edemas.
Standard heparin is a sulphated polysaccharide having an average molecular weight of 12,000-15,000 daltons which is isolated from bovine, ovine and porcine intestinal mucous membranes. Heparin is clinically used for the prevention and treatment of thromboembolic disorders but sometimes causes haemorrhages.
Over the past ten years, heparin has been gradually replaced by low-molecular-weight heparins which no longer exhibit or which exhibit to a lesser degree the disadvantage of causing bleeding and which now require only one injection per day instead of 2 to 3 injections per day for standard heparin. These low-molecular-weight heparins are prepared in particular by fractionation, controlled depolymerization of heparin or by chemical synthesis. They have an anti-Xa activity/anti-IIa activity ratio greater than 2.
It has now been found that low-molecular-weight heparins reduce cerebral edemas.
Cerebral edemas represent a major aggravating consequence of thromboembolic cerebrovascular accidents, of cerebral haemorrhages and of traumas of the central nervous system (cerebral trauma or medullary trauma) but also of cardiac and/or respiratory arrests, or any functionally equivalent situation regardless of its origin (ventricular fibrillation, malignant asthma attack). Cerebral edemas can also be found in any pathological or accidental situation of coma accompanied by hypoperfusion of the cerebral parenchyma. Cerebral edemas may also accompany cerebral tumours, irradiations and bacterial, viral and parasitic infections of the cerebral parenchyma.